Largo di Torre Argentina

Tickets and tours: which to book

Nothing is sold online for Largo di Torre Argentina on its own, and no tour of the square alone appears on the big booking platforms. There are two ways to see it. The free way is from the pavement: the whole sacred area lies a few metres below street level and the railings on all four sides give a clear view of every temple. The paid way is a short visit on the walkways laid through the ruins in 2023, sold at a small ticket point by the site, which brings you down to the level of the ancient paving and close to the columns and the medieval church apses.

The square is also a regular stop on general walking tours of the historic centre between the Pantheon, Campo de' Fiori and the Jewish Ghetto, and guides on Caesar-themed walks use it to tell the story of the Ides of March. Those tours pause at the railings rather than enter.

If you are short of time, look from the street and read the panels; if you like Roman archaeology, the walkway ticket is cheap and worth the half hour. Check the official city museums site for current hours, which have changed since the walkways opened.

A short history

The four temples stood in the Campus Martius, the flat ground outside the early city where generals built temples to thank the gods for victories. They were raised between about 300 and 100 BC, labelled A to D by archaeologists, and faced a paved street rebuilt after the fire of AD 80. Pompey's theatre complex rose to the west in the 50s BC, and its curia was the scene of Caesar's murder. The area was later built over, and medieval and Renaissance houses covered it until demolition for new buildings in the late 1920s exposed the temples. The ruins lie within the Historic Centre of Rome, a UNESCO site since 1980.

Getting there

Largo di Torre Argentina is one of the main transport hubs of central Rome. Tram 8 starts here and runs across the Tiber to Trastevere. Buses 40 and 64 come straight from Termini station along Via Nazionale in about 15 to 20 minutes, and many other lines stop around the square. There is no metro station nearby: the closest, Barberini and Colosseo, are each about 20 minutes on foot. From Fiumicino airport take the train to Termini or Trastevere and change to the bus or tram. On foot, the square is five minutes south of the Pantheon and five minutes east of Campo de' Fiori. Do not drive: the area is a restricted traffic zone.

Rules and what to bring

On the walkways, stay on the boards and railings and do not step onto the ancient paving or climb on the podiums. Do not feed the cats or lift them out of the ruins; volunteers at the sanctuary handle them. Watch your bag and phone at the crowded bus stops around the square, a known spot for pickpockets. There are no toilets on the site, but cafes on the surrounding streets have them, and a drinking fountain is never far away in central Rome.

When to go

Because the view from the street costs nothing and needs no planning, you can drop in whenever you pass, even at night, when the temples are lit from below. For the walkways, weekday mornings are the calmest; at weekends and in the middle of the day the pavement around the square fills with people waiting for buses.

The best months for walking in central Rome are April, May, late September and October. July and August are hot, and the sunken site has no shade, although a visit is short enough to manage. Winter is quiet and pleasant on a dry day. Each year on 15 March a re-enactment of Caesar's murder is staged near the site by a historical group, and crowds gather around the square. Allow 20 minutes from the railings, an hour with the walkways and the cats.